Many of us remember the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” in which a fictional corporate raider, Gordon Gekko, pronounced that "greed is good." In his view, greed not only saves companies, it would also save America.
As cynical as that statement is, it can be true. An industry's greed can beneficial when perfectly aligned with the public good. But it is not true when greed is misaligned — that is, when industries profit by undermining public health, the environment, or even national security.
When their greed undermines the public welfare, companies will often defend their social licenses to operate by discrediting critics, covering up the harm they are doing, and buying influence with elected officials by supporting their election campaigns. This practice is perfectly legal in the United States, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Harmful industries will spend copiously to lobby policymakers. They will invest heavily in public relations campaigns to persuade people they can’t live without the corporations’ products. If it is especially shameless, an industry will pressure governments for taxpayer subsidies.
There is no better example than the fossil energy industry. During most of the industrial revolution, it appeared to be on the side of good, powering the greatest and most rapid advancements in comfort and convenience in human history.
But things have changed. Fossil fuels have fouled the air, caused lung diseases, and triggered global warming, leading to disastrous changes in weather. Today, the good civilization derives from fossil fuels is far outweighed by the bad. Its greed is no longer “good” because fossil fuels’ harms far outweigh the good. By one estimate, the air pollution from burning fossil fuels kills billions of people worldwide — 8 billion in 2018 alone, or nearly one of every five fatalities.
According to a report published by the World Economic Forum, emissions from coal, oil and natural gas are altering the Earth's climate at a cost of $16 million every hour. It says global warming will cause economic losses of $12.5 trillion, extra healthcare costs of more than $1 trillion, and more than 14.5 million deaths by 2050, just 26 years from now
These excessive costs in life and treasure are unnecessary today because cheaper, cleaner and more benign resources are available. If the fossil energy industry wanted to realign its profits to do good, it would reinvent its business model to help the world transition to energy from sunlight, wind, water, geothermal temperatures, and other pollution-free resources, free for the taking.
Instead, billions of dollars are being spent using taxpayer money on carbon-capture technology that would allow power plants and factories to keep burning fossil fuels, but at prices that will never compete with clean energy.
Scientists have concluded that most of our remaining underground reserves of oil, gas and coal cannot be used if we hope to avoid catastrophic and irreversible climate change. Instead, the fossil energy industry continues making risky investments in new oil and gas extraction and infrastructure, even though the urgent transition to clean energy will likely strand them.
For example, Chevron said in December it expects to spend nearly $20 billion on new oil and gas projects this year; ExxonMobil plans to spend as much as $27 billion annually through 2027. Yet one study predicts fossil fuel reserves will be devalued as much as 50 percent, or $17 trillion, if the world is to keep the promise of the Paris climate agreement and hold global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.
Nevertheless, the industry's greed prevails. Rather than leading the transition to clean and sustainable energy, it keeps the fossil-fuel era alive by lying, obfuscating, denying, greenwashing, helping friendly politicians win election campaigns, and persuading the American people that fossil fuels are essential to our quality of life when in fact they are a growing danger to all life — ours and nature's.
Last year, the oil and gas industry spent nearly $93 million on lobbyists and, as of last October, $10 million on this year’s congressional election campaigns
Now, the industry is launching an eight-figure media splurge to "educate voters and policymakers on key energy policy issues ahead of the 2024 elections." It will attempt to persuade us that fossil energy remains indispensable to "continued human flourishing" when indisputable science and weather disasters prove the opposite is true.
A virtuous industry would not have to spend so much to persuade policymakers and voters of its virtues. Nor would it feel necessary to undermine candidates who want to confront climate change. The oil and gas industry will continue trying to convince us the world will collapse without fossil fuels. Yet national laboratories, expert organizations, and academic institutions have produced multiple roadmaps that show we can achieve a clean energy economy in the next few decades.
In the United States, currently the world's biggest oil and gas producer, the road to decarbonization is clear. We would eliminate taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels; use the recaptured revenues to help fossil-industry workers and communities adapt to the clean energy economy; expedite the market penetration of clean energy technologies; correct energy-market signals by putting a price on carbon; count the carbon embedded in fossil fuel exports in U.S. emissions reporting; expand the clean energy workforce; and retire fossil fuels from the economy except for truly essential uses.
Today, even Gordon Gekko could not credibly claim greed is good in the oil and gas sector. Quite the opposite. As we witness the industry's newest propaganda splurge, we would do well to remember another famous saying: Fool us once, shame on them; fool us again and again over the last 50 years, shame on us.
William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director who administered energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies programs, and he also served as special assistant to the department’s assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Becker is also executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, a nonpartisan initiative founded in 2007 that works with national thought leaders to develop recommendations for the White House as well as House and Senate committees on climate and energy policies. The project is not affiliated with the White House.
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